does provide is the tradeoff, in fact, we're talking about investments for affordable housing, we're talking about additional investments to open space which in fact will expand the reach for low-income folks in our city, so i think it's important that we not minimize the impacts that we can mitigate but in fact celebrate those and really figure out a way in which to elevate access and opportunity for our most vulnerable residents in the city and i do believe that these commissions are the stewards in evaluating those tradeoffs and it's important that both be considered but on the whole, the transportation investments, the affordable housing invests in addition to the open space investments will not only better provide an opportunity for our most vulnerable populations but also for all of san franciscans and folks in the region, so i

encourage you to approve both of these items so we can realize the true benefits for san franciscans with this plan. thank you. >> thank you. >> good morning, commissioners, my name is richard shaffer, i'm a resident of san francisco and i'm also a member of the sheet metal workers 104. i think the project is going to have minimum impact from shadows, i thought it was really interesting when we watched the shadows moving across justin herman plaza, how the areas where the people were sitting was where the shadows were, so i think that we have a chance here of creating a nice, small environment in other areas of town and the people will actually gravitate towards the shadows.

if that's not the way it would be, then what i would like is that all these tall buildings are being built south of market so that the waterfront is available for expansion for more open space if we want people to sit out in the sun, but i think people like to sit in the shade, so i support this project. i hope you do too. >> commissioner jim lazarus, i'm also here as xhair to have citizen's advisory committee but i first want to tell you, i'm sure some of you have smart phones on, top of the fifth, 6-0 giants on opposing grand slam. [applause]. maybe i'll use my time to continue to follow the game, but the citizen's advisory committee met earlier this week, received the same staff

report you received today and supports moving forward with the approvals for the shadow study in the transbay area and the transit tower project specifically. we think it meets a balance between a public benefit and the small increases of shadow which probably will have no adverse affect on the recreational uses of the facilities, we're going to get 12 and a half acres of new parks out of this project area, we're going to get as supervisor wiener said very important funding piece towards our cost of extending cal train and high speed rail underground to the transit station and to the train station that's being built at first and mission, and we're going to get net new sunny open space out of this project. a number of years ago, the planning department along with spur, the chamber and others came together to discuss how to

incrementally increase the revenues from this project area for the transit housing and open space benefits that would come from it, i think there's been unanimity at the board of supervisors and a number of mayors to move this project forward, to approve these very narrow shadow increases that public benefit far out weighs the impact to recreational uses. when i sat on the commission, we looked at a number of these issues and looked behind the significance to determine whether recreational uses are going to be impacted in any significant way, i think you'll find today that's not the case. i appreciate your support for the staff recommendation, thank you. >> president fong, buell,

commissioner, i'm howard wexler, i've been involved in development and planning process in san francisco for about 35 years and -- or more -- i had the privilege of serving as president of the redevelopment commission for four years so i am a supporter of development and i certainly support this transit project and make the changes necessary to approve the development of the transit project, but i am very concerned that there's a trojan horse here, that you need to modify the approvals, on three of the parks, you've been told the amount of shadow that needed to be increased in the allocation for the transit center, have been told that essentially that's about half of what is being asked for, on a accumulative basis, we need to do everything necessary for

the transit center accumulatively, but i was part of what went on in 1989 for setting up these limits, and they were set up, for example, union square was set up to allow enough net new shadow for, if some of you remember, the fitju building preceded the fifth avenue building, planning always wanted and required sax fifth avenue to go those two buildings, so i don't mind because sax hasn't gone ahead with it, and 2/10th being added for the transit section, but they had another 8/10 of a percent on for unknown things in the future that aren't before you, that haven't showed their public good and the same

thing in portsmouth square and at justin herman's mraz -- plaza, so i would strongly urge to you to consider those, you've seen the shadow and what it's impacts are in this project and i agree, they're not significant, they should be approved, you don't know the shadows on the other projects, people come and say, i have an allocation already, it's within the area and so i strongly urge you to vote yes, but to get the numbers from the staff on what they need for the whole transit center and don't add anymore in. civic center was 1% and that was because everybody knew the new main lieb -- library was going to add 1 more percent, don't increase the numbers

until you have the project before you and can hear all the testimony about it, don't give a blank trojan check, thank you. >> thank you. >> good morning, commissioners, my name is ramon hernandez, i represent over 4 thousand members of the marine, i urge you the support this project, transbay, they do a phenomenal job, as everybody knows, we have to be the model, probably in the united states to do the high speed rail, also the parks, what i can say, i represent over 500 gardens of which we can pass all these and i appreciate your support, thank you. >> let me call a couple more names, benjamin, tim frank, julia sullivan, shawn mcgery,

and jonathan yorba. >> good morning, commissions and san franciscans, it is my honor and joy to stand here before you today in support of this transit project, for one of the buildings will house our very own san francisco mexican museum, an unprecedented state of the art facility that will cement san francisco as a truly first-rate international cultural capital. >> thank you, can you tell us your name. >> my name is benjamin basciera. the shadows are connected to this project, especially the mexican museum, as my friend and i were discussed right now, the mayans and aztecs studied the sun in depth and understood

shadows intensely, the mexican museum will house art work and artifacts that pay respect to these important shadows. now, i want to say a little bit about myself, i am born and raised here in san francisco, i am a product of the power of our diverse arts, for me, it was first graffiti art and then the mission murals that led me to the harmony of drawing for myself. currently, because of art and culture and its motivation, i am a graduate of berkeley and of uc college of the law, i'm also a tenure professor now and a published author and it is art and culture that i believe can be that lost link to inspire imagination, reflection and intense intelligence for everyone, but

especially for our youth who need critical and positive visions of beauty. this mexican museum is hope for our community and our future, can you imagine the essays, poems, the intellectual conversations that will be stimulated by the more than 4 thousand pieces of art that the new mexican museum will house, predict the pride in new women and young men's souls from knowing their culture through history of arts. through the creation of this mexican museum, san francisco will once again be leading the way for love and justice. thank you for your attention and vision. >> thank you. next speaker, please.

>> good morning, presidents buell and fong and commissioners, i am dr. jonathan yorp, i'm the -- i just wanted to reiterate that we are also in the pipeline as part of a plan development in south of market and that we will be before you with we seek our eir certification and entitlements and we look forward to working with you in the months ahead. thank you. >> good morning, commissioners, my name is shawn mcger ri, i'm a field representative for carpenter 22, we have 3 thousand members here in san francisco, as we saw here today, i believe the shadows

are minimal, minimal impact on parks. we're going to have one thousand new affordable housing units out of this project. we're getting 12 plus parks, acres of new parkland which will reduce carbon dioxide in the city, it's going to help, san francisco led the way in the 20th century, this project and this infrastructure will ensure that san francisco leads the way for the nation and is a model for the nation and not just the nation but the world in the 21st century, we have 8 thousand plus new construction jobs, it will be generated from this project, 27 housing permanent new jobs as well as new housing, new units, new revenue for the city, i urge you, please support this project. thank you very much, bye-bye. >> thank you.

>> hello, i'm julia sullivan speaking on baf of the member organizations of the san francisco housing action coalition and we strongly support the transit center district plan. i'm asking you the please approve the shadow budget for the transit sent ce -- center, it's important to remember that for the small additional shadows cast, the district provides enormous benefits to the city, this includes the creation of a five acre park and significant funding for the parks, the district plan will deliver a 35% housing affordability rate, enormously higher than any that can be achieved by the inclusionary ordinance alone and the city's future adoption of high speed rail and other major transit infrastructures also depend on the success of this plan.

for these and many other reasons, we believe it is of vital importance to the city that the shadow budget be approved and this landmark project move forward. thank you. >> ruben santiago. >> good morning, commissioners, this rendering of the current design of the transbay tower at 1070 feet and this rendering is the transbay tower when it was proposed in 2007 at 1200 feet. as you can see, the 1200 foot

tower is much more impressive looking than the shorter version. san francisco has long awaited for a taller more iconic tower to grace its shorter skyline, the current design of the tower is 920 feet of occupied space with another 100 feet of empty space in the crown above that. there should be more floors of occupied space above 920 feet. in 1969, the bank of america had 54 floors of occupied space. in 2012, the proposed transbay tower has 60 floors of occupied space. you mean we could only get 8 more floors in 43 years for the so-called tallest building west of the mississippi? we need to go up higher. the dreaded shadows that will come with this tower are

irrelevant considering the magnitude of financial gains and positive result that is will occur for the city of san francisco, twice the amount of tourists spending money all over the city, hotels and businesses, cashing in any windfall of financial gain, unfortunately the tower lacks a world class rest ant at -- restaurant at the top of the tower and enjoy the breathtaking views while dining, so much can be gained by going up higher, the shadows that might last a little bit longer is nothing to get upset about. shadows aren't all bad, just tell that to an estimated 76 thousand americans in 2012 who suffer from skin cancer melanoma, they don't need sunlight, they need shade. commissioners, san francisco can achieve so much by having a taller tower even if you have

it over 1100 feet, it will be so impressive to gaze upon and the rest of the world will want to visit our fair city and enjoy this taller iconic tower just like the empire state building in new york city. thank you. >> thank you, would you like to offer your name? >> ruben santiago. >> great, thank you. >> yeah. >> my name is tim frank. thank you. very good. yes, my name is tim frank and i'm the director of the sustainable neighborhoods and i thank you for your work today. i wanted to encourage you to respond to the staff report positively, i think they've done an excellent yob and i think this project is quite remarkable, if i were to criticize the staff analysis, it's not taking enough credit in fact. if you look at this project

because of its location, the transit and the location, the fact that this city has a cumulative housing of such magnitude and the the project is responsive to these needs and provides an extraordinarily level of low-income housing is noted and it's designed with the very best of green technology, there will be lead goal projects within the project and that you are in fact encreasing the amount of sunny space in the area, not only that, if you look at the issue of sustainability, this is about addressing social and environmental values and this project itself is efrp -- exemplary of all of those, even looking at the issue of utilizing prevailing wage labor which is one of the reasons why you see so many union leaders

here supporting the project. this is something about which we can all be proud and you have a small opportunity today to contribute to creating the environment that allows this project to move forward in its fullest, so i encourage you to vote yes. >> any additional public comment? >> sue hester, i would like to follow up on howard wexer's comments, you're changing for more than a transit center, you're changing from other

things, the tower behind the palace hotel which will obliterate the sky when you come down on montgomery street, right now you come on montgomery street, you're on a canyon, in the foreground, you see the palace hotel and behind it there is going to be a 600 foot tower, it will take up the sky. the sky is an issue as well as prop k. i was the attorney representing chinatown better park and rec, when a project was approved, it had gone through an eir in the planning commission and we were on the verge of going to court, 505 montgomery, on the settlement negotiations, we had something, the developer was a good guy who wanted to talk but the planning department had never explored which is shrinking the size of the

building without losing one square foot of usable space. i had before been in an architecture office and they speak object interstitial spaces between the floor and is they collapsed the building nearly two storeys without losing square inches of usable space. what efforts will be take to make sure that you avoid every bit of sunlight loss on these parks? there was [inaudible] in the 80's around prop k and it's prop k that you are undoing, not just the planning code, and portsmouth square and union square were cost celebrities, i know, i was involved in the

litigation on those parks and i am asking jou to do the minimum necessary. if you feel like you have to approve the projects for the transit center, do just the transit center, do not do everything else and i ask you, you are changing the landscape for the tower on the sheridan palace today, which shadows union square, you're not going to have any sunlight as you go south on montgomery street because you are approving filling in of that with no further action going forward on either commission. you are changing the shadow budget and the [inaudible] will come in not only for that tower, but for all the other projects. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. >> any additional public comment? seeing none, the public comment portion is closed.

opening it up to commissioners. commissioner antonini? >> thank you. let's see if we can get over here a little bit. thanks, yeah, i appreciate all the comments and i think this is a wonderful project that we're looking at, a wonderful situation with transbay and i would like to speak to a couple of things. there were a couple of comments to prop k and section 295 and staff went through the whole history of both of those and said that, you know, we are not doing anything that is contrary to those and the moths are clearly spelled out and have been used for us to increase the shadow allowances by a joint action, so that's completely in keeping, and there were no absolute maximums that were ever set as part of those actions but the memo as mentioned of 1987 did bring those up also included as staff

has pointed out, the method by which we can increase these, so i think this was extremely good, the presentation. a few other thoughts on the entire thing, as i drove in today and it was an overcast day unfortunately we have more of in san francisco, while we look at these small amount of shadow changes, they're conjectural because we don't know how many days are going to be sunny and how many aren't, and when those will fall at the times we're seeing these small shadows so the impact is going to be less than we've seen today, the sun is always not a factor. another question i had and there was brief discussion of the situation with 706 mission and maybe josh can answer my question, but that's not before us today, of course, but i

appreciate and we had asked this at an earlier hearing that we did where possible analyze impacts of buildings outside of the plan area which that is clearly outside of the plan area, what our action today does nothing to increase the shadow allowance for that particular project, which i understand, maybe i'm reading it wrong, but you are asking for a 0.19 increase for union square, however, we did comment that the increase if we were to include the 706 mission would be 0.2%, the 706 mission from what i'm reading from your report only increases the shadow to union square by 0.019%, so round it off, 0.01%,

so if i'm correct, i wanted to comment that that is a very small amount, but it's a separate allocation from what we're dealing with today. >> commissioner, joshua, planning staff, the plan -- the district plan which is before you today, 706 mission is not part of the plan and therefore not technically part of this action, 706 mission would be an additional .09, if that project were to be allocated in the future on top of the plan, it would be 0.28%. i think your number was -- i think you said 0.2, so it's 0.28, but to speak to your -- more tech -- technically to

your question today, it would increase the budget to allow the accumulative development in the plan to proceed, it doesn't allocate it except for the action that's before you related to the tower to the other future buildings but what is included is the adoption of qualitative criteria that the budgets have, they detail the shadow profiles of the potential buildings as they would fit within those budgets, so the time of day and the time of year and so forth and those are particular to the analysis of the plan buildings from the eir, so while it's not allocated specifically to the future buildings, essentially the only buildings in the plan area that fit those profiles would be allocated in the future. >> thank you, i'm clear on that and also i understand these are buildings that have to have as part of the plan, have to have undergone the environmental analysis, and so -- or these

building shadows are projected and they would be covered by our increase. a couple of other comments and it's been made by staff very well and by many of the speakers is the benefits not only out weigh any small shadow increases but in terms of actual shadow, the benefits between the nearly 10 million dollars of allocation for park space outside of the plan area particularly in chinatown will more than mitigate with new sunny space in new parks or changes to existing parking to increase the amount of sunshine to those more than mitigate and sur -- surpasses any present today and the